Scary Stories
by agrajagthetesty
Summary: Their mother doesn’t want them to read scary stories. Ed knows that, and he supposes he can see why, but still he always finds himself feeling inexplicably drawn towards that particular section in the town library. . . Oneshot.


**Scary Stories**

Their mother doesn't want them to read scary stories. Ed knows that, and he supposes he can see why, but still he always finds himself feeling inexplicably drawn towards that particular section in the town library.

He goes there for the information- the dusty, cracked volumes with pages that rustle and spines that creak, steeped in ancient, abandoned alchemical knowledge. He loses himself in them, soaking in both the sheer luxury of learning about this most fascinating of subjects, and in the subtle, slightly guilty feeling of privilege he gets from the thought that he is the first person to read them in years. He studies there as often as he can, sometimes taking notes, sometimes breaking off to train his practical skills, but mostly just burying himself in words and letting time slide disjointedly and vaguely pat him, only manifesting itself in the hunger and cramps that violently seize him when he finally tears himself away.

It is then, tucking the book or two that he wants to borrow under his arm and heading towards the librarian's desk, that he inevitably catches sight of the tall, wide bookcase, exactly identical to all the others, yet somehow so much more tempting, headed with the one repulsive but seductive word, "HORROR".

But he refuses to read them. Winry laughs at this, calling him a coward.

"I'm not a coward!" he snarls back. "I was told not to read them."

"You're still a coward," she taunts. "Frightened of being told off."

Well, he can't have that- if anyone here is scared of their parents it's her- so he threatens her with a foreboding command to "just wait and see", and stalks off, face set into a grim mask, but already fretting about hiding the forbidden literature from his mother.

He seizes the next opportunity: when Al, who would normally have accompanied him on his research trips, and who certainly would have done all he could to prevent his brother from succumbing to disobedience, has himself succumbed to that common enemy of all children- a cold. Confined to bed, he coughs and sneezes and tosses and turns in simple misery. Ed pities him, of course, but he can't help feeling glad about the open possibilities Al's incapacitation provides. He sets off to the library the next day, money weighing down his pockets and Al's feeble request for a new reading book weighing down his mind. He is bound by two equally pressing objectives: help his brother, and prove Winry wrong. He stops at the corner, counts his change. Curses. He wonders if it will be enough.

He asks the librarian as soon as he arrives, displaying his money and explaining- more or less- his problem. She smiles sweetly but toothlessly at him and tells him not to worry. He has enough to rent two books for a month.

Every fear confirmed, Ed thanks her.

He won't be able to borrow a research book.

Ed stays in the library as long as humanly possible, poring over the alchemical references until his eyes hurt, and jotting notes in his notebook on almost every paragraph. He must make especially good use of his time here, now that renting is no longer a possibility.

Finally he stumbles, weary and almost paralysed by the pins and needles in his legs, over to the fiction section. He browses thoroughly through the children's shelves, rejecting most of it as infantile and so colourful it gives him a headache, before finally settling on a simple old-fashioned storybook for Al. Then, shaking with nervous anticipation, he heads towards his final stop, glancing cautiously around him all the time.

When he reaches it without incident or being forcibly intercepted, he feels a real sense of achievement. He looks up at the bookcase in awe. It is as huge as it appeared from a distance, and simply crammed with books. He feels dizzy as he stares at them, thinking of the infinite choice. Then, without further ado, he begins to search the shelves.

After a short amount of time he decides that the best books, inevitably, will have been placed on the higher shelves, and drags a stool over to the bookcase before continuing to scan the titles.

Eventually he decides to rent a collection of short stories: it will last a while and provide him with enough variety and material to see him through until he gets up the courage and funds to come here again. He seizes the thickest tome of this sort and descends to ground level, disappointed- as he always is after stepping down off a chair or ladder- at how low his "ground level" actually is.

The librarian, who is, Ed is beginning to suspect, almost completely blind, gives her alarming smile again as she stamps the books, saying "Lovely" after examining the cover of each one. She offers them up to him with a toffee-containing grimace and a reminder to return them after a month.

He nods, refuses her offer of a bag, stows the books away in his rucksack, looks around furtively, and flees.

He darts up the stairs as soon as he gets home, calling a breathless greeting to his mother in the kitchen as he does so, and rushes into his bedroom, flinging himself to the floor by the bed and shoving his bag, weighed down with the illicit book, under it. Sprawled on his stomach, he grins in triumph. No-one saw him. Success.

"Ed?"

He yelps, then slowly looks up, knowing but dreading what he will see. Sure enough, Al's ruffled, blinking-eyed face, made pale by illness, is peering down at him from over the bars of the bed, looking confused and newly-woken.

Ed had forgotten that he would be here.

"What are you doing?" Al's head asks him, curiously tilting to one side.

Ed hesitates, then pulls an enormous grin and retrieves the bag from under the bed. "Um, I got your book."

He looks up to gauge Al's reaction, and immediately leaps to his feet, outraged. He was furious when Al's height surpassed his a few months ago, and lying on the floor whilst his little brother looks down at him from the top bunk of the bed is neither pleasant nor encouraging. He disguises the movement by holding the book up, slightly embarrassed.

Al reaches down to take it- _he really has to reach! _-and looks at it appraisingly. Then, the blurb of the book proving only a temporary distraction, his gaze snaps back to Ed's face. "Why did you hide it under the bed?"

Ed thinks fast. "I wanted to surprise you with it later."

"Even though I asked you for it?"

"Er, yes."

"And you thought that here would be the best place to hide it?"

_Dammit, Al!_

Al's brows descend suspiciously. "Brother. . ."

Ed at last, spectacularly, gives in. "Alright! I got something else too."

Al wordlessly holds his hand out.

_If you weren't ill and a lot stronger than me- shamefully so- I'd wallop you_, Ed thinks as he rummages through the bag. _When did you get so nosey?_ At last he finds it and hands it wearily over.

For a brief, merciful second, Al is silent, staring at it, holding the book in one hand and a balled-up tissue in the other. Then his brows descend again, but in a far more foreboding manner this time.

Ed stands with his hands in his pockets, counting down the seconds.

But Al seems more astonished than angry- or maybe he is just too sick to rant. In any case, when he speaks, his voice is quiet and, despite being phlegm-filled, steady. "Mother told you not to read these."

"I know," Ed shrugs.

"So, what then?"

Ed turns away, closing his eyes in a display of nonchalance. "I don't really care about what she thinks."

"Why hide it if you don't care?"

Ed's eyes snap open. Al seems intent on jabbing holes in his arguments today.

Al's voice is low and accusatory. "You'll get nightmares."

"I never get nightmares," Ed scoffs at him.

---

Despite Al's disapproval, he really is too ill to do anything except sneeze, blow his nose and hack up a lung. It is easy, then, for Ed to steal the book back, creeping into the room with a handkerchief clasped protectively over his mouth and ensuring Al is sleeping before swiping the volumes from his limp-fingered grasp.

In spite of this victory, Ed waits before reading his prize, hesitating for the space of a week or so. Perhaps it is because he is nervous after all; or perhaps because with Al and his cold occupying their bedroom, and Ed forced to sleep in their mother's room, it is difficult to find a moment alone in which to read without fear of interruption. Most likely it is a mixture of both reasons. But after those days Al's faltering immune system finally pulls its socks up and vanquishes his illness. Ed has his room back.

Except, of course, Al still sleeps there as well, and with him now conscious and functioning normally, it is not as easy to keep things from him. Doubtless he discovered the absence of the book, and doubtless he does not think that it fell to the floor and got lost somewhere. But he is, as always, unwilling to provoke a fight; and, unless he himself is provoked, he seems prepared to let the matter drop. So Ed is very careful around him, and has found a new hiding-place for the forbidden tome.

But he grows tired of lurking around the house with it hidden under his sweater, trying in vain to find a peaceful spot in which to read it, and eventually locks himself into the bathroom with the damn thing.

He comes silently into their room at bedtime in pyjamas and slippers in time for their mother to kiss them goodnight. Then the light goes out and they lie still and in silence.

A while later, when Al is swimming pleasantly in the creamy, dark pool bordering on the very edge of sleep, he is startled back into consciousness by a noise from Ed. Not a grunt, not a snore- these noises being emitted by his brother at this time of day wouldn't startle him in the slightest- but a faint, almost inaudible whimper.

A what? Al is wide awake. Ed _never_ whimpers.

"Brother?" he whispers tentatively into the darkness.

There is a long pause. Al is almost beginning to think he imagined the sound, when Ed at last responds. "Mm?" His voice is tense, strained and almost comical in its pitch.

"What happened?" Al asks.

Again the silence before the reply. "I read the book."

Al groans inwardly, but tries not to let it show in his voice.

"Did you have a nightmare?" he asks.

"No," Ed says, accompanied by a sort of soft rustling noise that reveals him to be shaking his head.

Al wonders whether he is still, even now, trying to show bravado.

"I'm too scared to sleep."

Silence.

Al hovers uncertainly on the borderline between sympathy and a smug "I told you so". In the end he says, "I thought you shouldn't read it," which could be interpreted as either.

Another rustle, this time signifying a nod.

Al pauses. Ed really does seem scared. "They're just stories, Brother. They don't even make sense. They're not real."

". . . Mm."

Another pause.

"Shall I get Mother?"

"No!" Ed hisses. "No, you idiot! What'll she say? No, shut up, Al. I'm fine."

This is far more of a reassurance to Al than Ed's quiet agreements were. If Ed is angry, he must be fine.

No more than a few minutes later, Al's breathing is slow and soft and his movements are reduced to the gentle, steady rise and fall of his chest and the occasional twitch of his hand. Ed, meanwhile, remains stiff and rigid, curled into a tense ball beneath the covers and waiting for the monster made of shadows to come for him.

He tries telling himself that Al was right, that they're only stories, for God's sake- made up- and that the fear is imagined, all in his head. But then he remembers one story, about a boy, sensible, sceptical and entirely non-superstitious- a boy just like _him_- whose death brimmed with terrible and horrible details, precisely because of those very qualities. He screws his face up and lies in morbid wait for his own demise, moaning softly every so often. _Why_ did he rent that book?

---

He returns to the library the next day, pale, shaken with nightmares and shadowed from lack of sleep, and returns the books. The librarian chuckles when he hands them in, for no reason Ed's barely-functioning mind can fathom. She offers him a boiled sweet. He turns it down. Even the smell of food made him feel ill and unsettled that morning.

She laughs again, at which Ed feels slightly irritated.

"That reminds me, dear," she says suddenly as he is about to leave. "Before I forget again, would you mind taking a look? It just came in, and I wonder if you would be interested. . ."

She holds up a book. Ed takes it out of politeness, despite only wanting to get out, and glances wearily at the cover.

He sees blood and claws and dripping teeth and a snarling, fang-filled mouth-

Outside, a young woman riding a bicycle through the town almost falls off in shock at the sound of a scream, fractured and ear-splitting, emerging from the open windows of the library.

_Author's notes: Serves him right, the fool. Can't stand horror._

_Anyway, I'm quite pleased with this one. I tried a bunch of new techniques, including present tense, a hopeful little thing that I like to call "humour", and NAMES. Also, it has Trisha in it (a very little bit). Non-angst, too._

_Reviews make me skip through fields of sunshine and bunnies._


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